Terror rocketed through Tala as she hit the snow, getting a face full of icy powder. She shoved up and rolled to her side to see what had happened, her gut clenching when she saw the huge pile of debris and nothing else. “Braxton!”
She couldn’t see him. Only the river of snow, rock and tree matter still spilling down the hillside, piled up at least seven feet high across the trail. “No, no, no,” she breathed, desperate to find him, refusing to believe he could be dead.
Her right ski had come off when he’d shoved her out of the way, and been swept up in the avalanche. She flung off the left one, now useless.
Unable to walk without a foot at the end of her prosthetic, she flipped onto her knees and crawled as fast as she could to the huge pile of snow studded with rock and branches, frantically scanning for any sign of him.
She couldn’t see anything. “Braxton!” Please let him be okay… She had to find him. Had to get him out before he suffocated.
Her heart pounded so hard against her ribs it felt bruised as she searched for some sign, anything that might help her locate him beneath the rubble. She crawled partway up the debris mound and started digging with her hands, shoving big sweeps of snow and bits of branches aside with her arms when it didn’t seem to move fast enough. She could feel the seconds slipping past, time she didn’t have to waste.
As she swept another armful off to the side, her gaze caught on something sticking out of the mound.
A ski tip.
She lunged over to it and frantically began digging the snow away from it. “Braxton, can you hear me?” she called out.
No answer, only the wind swirling around her and her pulse hammering in her ears.
She kept digging. The ski came loose. She yanked it out, tossed it behind her and hurriedly scooped the snow away from that same spot, praying she would be able to find him. It had to have been well over a minute since she’d started digging.
Her hand touched something hard. A ski pole.
Dammit, she had to be close to him. She pulled it free and resumed digging, every heartbeat feeling like an eternity. The pain in her leg was forgotten. There was no cold, no exhaustion, nothing but the icy terror gripping her that she wouldn’t be able to get to Braxton in time.
Then she saw it. Faint movement in the snow just to the left of where she was digging.
She sucked in a breath and plunged her arm deep into the snow there. Her hand met something firm. She grabbed it. Pulled.
Her heart jumped when her fingers closed around the puffy material of a jacket. “Brax.”
Tala dug as hard and fast as she could, desperation driving her. He didn’t have any air in there. Wouldn’t be able to breathe. Come on, come on, she ordered herself, pushing harder, faster.
She uncovered part of his arm. Shoved her hand through the snow to grope around. She needed to uncover his face. Give him room to breathe.
Sweat gathering along her spine as she fought to free him. His upper arm. Shoulder. Neck.
He wasn’t moving.
“Brax, come on,” she urged him as she uncovered the side of his face, her voice shredding. He couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t take that.
She thought his hand moved slightly. Hope leaped inside her. “Brax, wake up. You have to wake up,” she ordered, fighting back tears. She kept working, moving fast but carefully now so as not to hurt him. Please, please…
His other glove was cupped in front of his face. As if he’d tried to create an air pocket as the snow closed over him.
Her chest hitched, scalding tears burning the backs of her eyes. She pulled his hand away from his face. Blood was trickling down it from a gash over his right eyebrow, and he had several scrapes on his cheeks. She kept digging, managed to remove the snow away from his head, still covered by his knit cap.
Her breathing hitched when his eyelids fluttered. She seized his face in her hands, cupping it, careful not to move him in case he had a neck or spinal injury. “Wake up. I need you to open your eyes and look at me,” she begged.
His eyelids flickered. Then his eyes cracked open, his gaze blurry as he slowly focused on her.
“You’re okay,” she told him, though he probably wasn’t—how could he be after being buried in all this? “Just stay with me. Stay with me, we need to get you out of here.” Shit, what was she going to do?
There was no cell reception here, they had no medical supplies other than basic things in his ruck—wherever that was now—and she could no longer ski down for help. How was she going to get him down the mountain safely? Maybe she could lash the skis together with something and lay him down on them, then push him across the snow on her hands and knees.
His gaze cleared a little more as he blinked up at her, a low groan coming from his throat. “Tal.”
“Yes.” She leaned down and put her nose and forehead against his, then covered his face with kisses, not caring about the blood, just happy he was still alive. “Where does it hurt?”
“My…back.”
Her stomach dropped. “Your spine?”
“Don’t know.” He moved a little, bringing his arms up.
Yes! “That’s it, nice and slow,” she encouraged, shoving back her emotions. She needed to hold it together. Had to get him out and then find help somehow.
She scooped more snow away from him and he started moving more. Finally, she was able to reach in and wrap her arms around his ribs. “I’m scared to move you.”
He shook his head. “I can move.” His jaw clenched. She could feel the muscles in his arms and back bunching beneath his jacket as he struggled to get free while she kept pulling snow and branches away from him.
After a few minutes, Braxton leaned to the side and managed to crawl out under his own power. She knelt beside him, holding her breath as she scanned him for injuries. His jacket was torn up in spots, and his ruck and pistol were nowhere to be seen.
She pulled off her gloves and ran her frozen hands along his arms, spine and legs, checking them for more blood. They came away clean. But he could be bleeding under his clothes, or inside somewhere. “Do you hurt bad anywhere besides your back?”
“I’m okay,” he managed.
He definitely wasn’t okay. Might have internal damage they didn’t know about. But she couldn’t treat that and had nothing to wrap him in to keep him warm. “Just lie still. I—”
She jerked, sucking in a sharp breath when a gunshot cracked through the icy air. The bullet hit meters to their left, kicking up a burst of snow where Braxton had just crawled out of.
Tala dove on top of him, instinctively curling her arms around his head to shield him. He groaned and pushed her off him. “Go,” he commanded, shoving her behind him. “Get behind cover.”
“I’m not leaving you.” She grabbed him by the wrist and pulled, intending to drag him to safety.
Another shot rang out, pinging off a rock outcropping mere feet away.
Braxton put his hands on her shoulders and pushed, his face taut. “Go!”
Ignoring him, she glanced up. Saw the shooter standing above them on the ridge and her blood iced over. “He’s up there!”
Braxton tried to grab her but she wrenched away and shrugged her harness from her shoulders, reaching for her rifle. The shooter was farther away than the fifty yards she was accurate at, but it didn’t matter.
She was going to stop him right here and now.
****
A few minutes after leaving the building site, Mason stopped his snowmobile beside Tate and waited for his friend to consult their map one more time. Repeated attempts to reach Braxton’s or Tala’s cell phones had failed, and now the GPS spotter wasn’t working either.
He and Tate each had rucks full of food, blankets, clothing and medical supplies. They were also both armed, with a rifle and sidearm. Now it was just a matter of finding their friends.
He tugged off his gloves and blew on his hands to warm them. Shit, it was cold. Dawn was here, giving them lots of daylight for the search, and the weather was finally improving some.
The storm was slowly dying, but it had stalled over the area instead of moving on as the original forecast had predicted. The bitter wind still gusted around them but nothing like last night, and the snow had become a steady, gentle fall.
Back at the building site, all the other volunteers were assembling with their equipment. Avery was coordinating the initial search effort. As soon as everyone headed out, she would head up with Tate’s neighbor, Curt, on other snowmobiles to a different trail in case Braxton and Tala were on that one instead.
Tate rolled the map back up and tucked it inside his jacket. “Last ping from the GPS spotter put them seven miles from here. We’ll start there and work our way down.”
Mason nodded, was about to answer, when the unmistakable sound of a rifle shot echoed in the distance. His head jerked up, then he looked sharply at Tate, and from the look in his friend’s eyes, Mason knew they were thinking the same thing.
No fucking way it was a hunter or sport shooter out here in these conditions. And that meant the fugitive gang member might have found Tala and Braxton.
Before he could say anything, another shot cracked through the air.
Shit. “Northeast?” Mason said, trying to locate where the shots were coming from.
Tate’s jaw clenched, his gaze now trained in that direction up the trail. “Yep.”
Then came the distinctive, high-pitched pop of another weapon. He snapped his gaze back to Tate. “Hear that?” He’d recognize that sound anywhere.
A .22. And hearing it now in answer to the other rifle made his guts clench.
“Tala,” Tate blurted, and took off.
Mason fired up his snowmobile and tore after him, their treads kicking up rooster tails of fresh powder behind them as they raced along the access trail that would get them up to the ridge where the shots seemed to be coming from. Until those shots, they’d been searching blind out here, hoping for a miracle.
Now the miracle would be if Tala and Braxton were still alive when he and Tate reached them.